College of Design

University of Oregon product design undergraduate student Derek Sackmann is one of just three national award winners in a design competition to develop a lifting device made from zinc, winning $2,000 for himself and $1,000 for the Product Design Program at the UO’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

The 2014-5 Interzinc Design Challenge attracted entries from schools across the United States and Canada. The annual competition, which requires zinc for the main component, challenged students this year to develop a lifting device designed to be produced in die-cast zinc.

The Lincoln Center Art Galleries in Fort Collins, Colorado, will present “Surface Tension,” a photographic series by UO Professor Terri Warpinski with poetry by Laura Winter, September 12 through November 1, 2014.

“Surface Tension” is a series of photographs by Warpinski exploring the political borderlands along the U.S.-Mexico border and the Occupied Palestinian Territories juxtaposed against images of present-day Berlin, Germany.

A shoe designed by Product Design Program student Stefan Cristobal will be produced for shoe brand Android Homme in 2015 after Cristobal won the 2014 Pensole World Sneaker Championship.

Transitions that began last week at the UO ripple through the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. With leadership changes at the top in the appointment of an interim president, Frances Bronet is now the Acting Senior Vice President and Provost for the university. For the school’s top post, current associate dean Brook Muller will serve as Acting Dean effective August 25.

Online voting ends August 2 for The Bike Design Project, a national competition intended to develop the “next-wave urban bike.” One of the five finalist teams includes University of Oregon graduates whose “key influencers” include A&AA alumnus Tinker Hatfield of Nike, Inc.

A story in the current Men’s Journal features research by a UO Product Design Program class on how to design a next-generation condom. In a classroom laboratory, the students tested seventy different condoms on twenty attributes.

The first student-built house in the OregonBILDS (Building Integrated Livable Designs Sustainably) project is on the Home Builder’s Association of Lane County’s 2014 Tour of Homes through July 27. The house was featured in a Register-Guard story about the tour and is open weeknights from 6-9 p.m. and weekends from noon to 6 p.m.

Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM) undergraduate Erik Thorbeck has been awarded a prestigious scholarship for study abroad. He will use his David L. Boren Scholarship to study in China from January to September 2015.

Kathrin “Kat” Walsch is the new Senior Director of Development for the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Walsch, who has been with UO since 2008, “has a strong appreciation of both the School and University’s approach to development work,” said A&AA Dean Frances Bronet.

The UO's Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) has been mentioned again in the Chronicle of Higher Education in a story entitled “Want a College Experience That Matters? Get to Work”. In his story, Scott Carlson notes, "…[the] current generation of students yearns for real-world work, [and] a comprehensive program that takes on real-world problems can attract some of the best.